Garden Design

Garden inspiration

Architecturally varied foliage, a meditation space and a bubbling Jacuzzi® Swim Spa, Kate Gould’s Gold Medal ‘Out of the Shadows’ RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022 multi-layered garden packed a powerful punch when it came to demonstrating what small gardens can deliver. Here are some ideas to take from the medal winner

1. Planning a garden Kate’s finished garden at Chelsea Flower Show mirrored her original CAD design; it was as if she had painted her carefully thought-out layout using plants. Kate is a stickler for meticulous planning and sticking to that plan.

“Everything must work extra hard as there is often nowhere to hide,” she says. “Think about what the ‘mood’ is you are trying to achieve –contemporary, contemplative, traditional, whatever. Perhaps you are happy with a mixture of all, but stick to the discipline of your ideas, rather than throwing all and sundry at it.”

A mood board of plants and materials will help you to decide what sort of thing you are looking for and create an overall coherence, adds Kate. If you are going for a contemporary feel, when it comes to plant varieties, “less can very much be more: less maintenance; more impact and drama.”

Before planting, consider how to make the most of the space. If it's for entertaining outside, incorporate seating into the hard landscaping – a low wall can double as a bench. Large containers can create raised beds if in a courtyard or basement setting that might not have access to the soil. This also allows the planting to be raised, so that when walking past, it feels like one is within the garden, rather than just looking out over it.

Think about what parts of a garden need to be screened out and what to highlight – while an essential part of her sanctuary garden, Kate chose to place the swim spa in an

area surrounded by abundant planting. Not only does it make a calming space to be, it ensures that the structure does not dominate the garden.

And if there is an ugly view to hide, don’t necessarily resort to a solid screen. Often layers of soft foliage and branches, as in the narrow leaves of the Schinus molle and bamboo in Kate’s garden, will filter out an eyesore. If money is spent on big dramatic feature plants make sure they are placed somewhere to which the eye is drawn, so they can perform with aplomb. Don’t be daunted by what might seem a tight spot but think big: “You will be amazed by how much you can fit into a small space with careful planning,” says Kate.

2. Go for green Kate’s ‘Out of the Shadows’ garden was primarily evergreen, referencing how people want to use and enjoy their gardens 365 days a year. Among the evergreens chosen were palms, trochodendron, cycads and raphiolepis and pittosporum, which created a wonderfully lush environment. “These plants not only look majestic,” says Kate, “but also look wonderful when lit at night, giving the garden a whole new feel as the light levels drop to dusk.”

Evergreen schemes can provide form, structure and vitality and as they don’t drop their leaves in autumn, they have a great advantage, points out Kate. “Generally evergreen plants are less messy than deciduous ones –with the exception of bamboo.”

At Chelsea, Kate chose plants with strong architectural outlines, such as silvery cardoons, angelica and the dissected leaves of Acer palmatum (which will also provide fiery autumn colour). Research has shown that not only does the greenery act as a natural screen, but will offer a home to wildlife and help soak up noise and pollution.

3. Think multilevel Don’t forget that the space above the ground is there to be filled, whether with tall trees such as birch, which cast a dappled shade without too much bulk, or structures such as a pergola which can be as attractive as they are useful, in contemporary materials such as powder-coated metal that can be sprayed in various colours. And walls and fences can be a feature in themselves, as part of the overall scheme, as well as providing a dramatic backdrop to the planting.

If after privacy, beware not to increase the height of the walls too much, suggests Kate, especially if creating a garden in a basement. “Standing in the garden will make you feel like you are in the bottom of a bunker,” says Kate.

Filter things out with foliage instead, or by using tricks such as a latticed wall: light will still get through but it would be hard for nosy neighbours to peep through from a distance.

A small garden can be made to appear much lusher and larger by not only using plants of different shapes and sizes, but by building in different zones at many levels. Kate has used terracing and large corten containers to create several plains of planting. On a less ambitious scale, an arrangement of pots in the same material but in different sizes, with an array of foliage and flowers, can create a dramatic screen against the neighbours.

4. Lights and furniture Garden lights can be as attractive as they are utilitarian. At Kate’s Chelsea garden, delicate spiked globe lights, which are widely available, acted like glow-worms among the foliage, even in daylight. The larger spheres, hand-shaped by Catellani and Smith, served as sculpture highlights in the day, coming into their own at night when they lit up the garden with their soft, romantic light and highlighted the dramatic foliage of the trees above them.

White plants also help keep a garden alight as the day begins to fade. This is neatly demonstrated by Kate’s pristine arum lilies and towering spires of Eremurus himalaicus that were planted in her sanctuary garden, glowing like wands in the dusky light. Scent that linger on the night air is also key, such as the Lilium ‘Snowy Morning’ also included in Kate’s garden.

For furniture choose with care. It can be bring its own beauty to a garden, whether in weathered hardwood or, as in Kate’s garden, seats and a fire pit in a coppery finish, made by Torc Pots to entice the user out in the evenings,

however chilly. Although simple and contemporary, their soft organic curves reflected the informally shaped and placed pavers along the gravel paths that wound around the garden. Kate advises: “Taking your time to select pots, furniture and art will allow you to really evaluate what you want, need and like. It may also allow you to make your purchases at the most economical time of year.”

5. Seamlessly integrate water features One of the most dramatic and talked about features in Kate’s Chelsea garden was a swim spa but she demonstrated that such large inclusions need not dominate the space – it was discreetly hidden beneath decking and clad in coloured metallic discs. This all married in with the Corten steel planters, the brick walls and the coppery tones of the seating and fire pit. Meanwhile, grey gravel and Schellevis concrete paving picked up on the elegant steel of the pergola above, while a restrained planting palette of white, silver, pale blue and rusty orange reflected these materials. All have sustainability in mind, so, for example, the decking by the pool and the gravel surfaces are permeable, so rainwater soaks through to the soil.

“There should always be a harmonious balance between hard and soft landscaping in a garden,” says Kate. So think about how each element of a garden will sit in its surroundings: the colours and materials around them, whether it be paths, plants, walls and fences, or structures.